The Bonds of Brothers
by Lowe183
Summary: What if Naruto wasn't alone since the beginning? What if he didn't have to bare all the pain by himself? What if he was never lonely? This is the tale that will be told throughout the Shinobi Nations, and this is their story. Rated M just in case


"_Naruto…_" a heavenly voice whispered as an image of a beautiful woman grew into existence, hair a shining red and eyes a deep blue that seemed as though you were staring into an ocean.

"_Narutoo…_" she whispered again with a serene smile upon her face

"_Naruto you have to wake up_" she said in a louder voice as her face never changed from its tranquil expression.

"NARUTO, Wake the fuck up!"

And just like that the image faded away into the abyss and in its place was a foot… coming at his face.

An indigent yell followed as Naruto was sent spiraling off his small bed and onto the floor.

"Agh FUCK Kaoru!" Naruto shouted as he held onto his abused nose "I think you fuckin broke it this time"

Kaoru just shrugged "If you didn't exhaust yourself every night then maybe I wouldn't have to hit you to wake you up"

Naruto narrowed his eyes up at the gray haired boy that was currently standing over him.

Ignoring Naruto's indignant replies, Kaoru took the time to look over Naruto's banged up body. His shirt was shredded, goggles broken, _"there goes my birthday gift" _Kaoru thought with a frown, and pants stained with blood which, of course, was most likely his own.

Now normally a person, if not a mere child, would be shocked to look at the bed next to them immediately after waking up and seeing his or her roommate in the state of which Naruto was in right now, but after seeing him, and sometimes being, in that very state every morning, it was more of a daily routine then a surprise.

Sitting down on his own bed, Kaoru watched Naruto get back up and sit back on his bead, all the while picking at his damaged nose and whispering muffled curses which were, most likely, towards him.

"You know, when you invited me out of the orphanage and into your new apartment, I didn't think you'd go insane 3 weeks in…" Kaoru deadpanned making Naruto stop fussing with his nose and look towards him in scrutiny.

"I'm not going INSANE Kaoru, I'm just very determined to train and get better so I can-"

"Become Hokage blah blah blah" Kaoru finished with hand gestures to mimic each word "Ya ya I know, you've said that every day since we were 8 and I still don't get it, I mean sure I wanna become a kickass ninja too, but Hokage? We're orphans Naruto, say it with me now" Kaoru got up and grabbed Naruto's head, moving the boy's mouth to punctuate every letter "O-R-P-H-A-"

"Orphans I got it!" Naruto yelled as he slapped Kaoru's hands away and jumped out of bed to get in Kaoru's face "But we'll start the Academy tomorrow so it doesn't matter IF we're an orphan then, hell the Fourth Hokage was an orphan ya jackass" Naruto said with a smirk, one that was quickly matched by Kaoru

"Very true, now get up so we can do MY part of the training today" Kaoru said making Naruto groan "Hey it's not my fault you go overboard with your own training and get sore the next day, you have enough strength as it is, now you need speed"

When it came to physical comparison between the two, you could say they were polar opposites. While Naruto believed in being strong enough to plow through anything in your way, Kaoru believed that taking unnecessary damage was not needed when you were fast enough to see and dodge every move. Although the two differed in preferences on how to deal with things, they had enough brains to know what the other attribute had to offer, so, the two created their own routines to follow. Naruto made the strength routines for the two, while Kaoru made the speed and agility regimens.

Although their expertise may have differed, the two's body build were almost identical. They were both unusually tall for their age, Naruto standing at a good 5'5" and Kaoru an inch shorter, the two had dense compact muscle that were abnormal for their young age of 12, especially since they hadn't even hit puberty yet. Naruto was albeit a little more bulkier then Kaoru who had a more slender look but that was to be expected with ones harder focus on strength and the others focus on swiftness. All an all the two looked much alike with the only difference being the color of their hair and eyes and Naruto's strange birthmark. While Naruto had wild and untamable blonde hair highlighting his blue eyes that gave him almost an animalistic look with the three indented whisker marks on each side of his cheeks, Kaoru had stormy gray hair that neatly cascaded down his face matching his equally gray eyes, his face was pale and smooth without a single blemish.

Even though the two hadn't left the orphanage for long, they'd been using and improving their routines for years now. Both becoming, in their own humble opinion, better than the chunins that they had often spied on in the training fields. They had tried to spy on some of the jounin's that they would occasionally find, but would always end up getting caught. They got to witness one of the jounin's in action though as he seemed too laid back to even acknowledge their presence of which, the jounin obviously knew. He had gray hair much like Kaoru's and had a mask covering his face blocking one of his eyes out. Just observing him in action for a couple minutes put the two hidden boys mouth agape. The sheer volume of the jutsus the man let out was insane, not to mention his pure speed as the two would occasionally lose sight of him only for the man to reappear across the field. Needless to say the whole event only drove the boys even more to improve and become the best, because if you wanted to be the best, then you had to beat the best.

The two arrived at their training ground after a short trek from their home, it was a plateau on a small hill deep in the woods to ensure no one would stumble across them. They spent days making the area a perfect training ground, creating and bringing anything that they required to train.

"Alright Naruto let's get started" Kaoru said as he started the stopwatch hanging around his waist. As soon as he hit the button he shot chakra to his feet and burst through the foliage of trees, narrowly side stepping each tree he came across and kept going till he reached his destination; that being the largest tree in the forest, approximately 1 mile from their training ground.

"Augh" Naruto sighed exasperatingly as he too started his stopwatch and followed his friend through the woods being careful to keep a level head and dodge every obstacle instead of plowing through it like he was used to with his power exercises, all the while straining to push and keep the perfect amount of chakra onto the soles of his feet.

This training was one Kaoru had come up by himself after learning of the instrumental uses of chakra from the nicer chunin's they would come across. Pushing chakra onto your feet wasn't as easy as most would think, it took a large amount of concentration to push the exact amount of chakra onto your feet so as not to, if you put too much, stick to the floor, and if you put too little, get no outcome except the slow draining of your chakra.

So this exercise was developed to refine a person's concentration, increase their chakra reserves, and get used to the faster pace of which they could run in with the appliance of chakra. All this with the added trees that they had to dodge through the woods made pushing chakra to their feet second nature to them nowadays. It was an all-around helpful exercise that Kaoru was proud to this day of making. He knew he had to make the exercise more difficult soon due it being too easy now, but he could always think of that later.

The two boys quickly went through their routine for the day until the sun started to set off in the distance.

"Alright *huff* lets go *huff* home" Naruto breathed out as sweat dripped from his hair and joined the thick sheen of sweat that covered his entire person. He started hopping towards their normal path home when Kaoru walked beside him and put the blonde's arm around his head to support him as Naruto fared worse than him from the exercise, which was understandable as his body was less used to cardio.

"Oh god I'm gonna die" Naruto moaned out as Kaoru laid him down on his bed earning him a flick on the forehead, only making the blonde moan louder.

"Oh stop being such a bitch, we've done this routine over 10 times by now" Kaoru said as he started getting into his pj's for bed

"And I'll never get used to it, you're a slave driver Kaoru, I hope you know that" Naruto glared from his comatose state on the bed not planning to change for the night due to having no motor control of his body at the moment.

"Me!" Kaoru shouted as his head whipped towards Naruto with wide eyes "YOU MADE US BENCH A 300 POUND ROCK YESTERDAY!"

"And?" Naruto questioned not seeing the problem

"WITH A GODDAMN SENBON NEEDLE UNDER THE BACK OF OUR HEADS!"

"So?"

"AS A FUCKING POST-WORKOUT!" Kaoru roared inching towards the boy with twitching fingers ready to strangle him any second.

"Ok…..maybe you've got a point" Naruto conceded as he put his arm up in defeat and laid his head down on the pillow promptly falling asleep as his head made impact and letting out a snore for confirmation.

"Ugh baka" Kaoru said shaking his head with a small smirk. No matter how foolish Naruto could be, he knew his friend was always there for him. Ever since the orphanage he saw the blonde as an enigma. He was hated by the caretakers who taught the rest of the kids to hate him too. Kaoru was the only child not to follow the group and attempt to be friends with the lonely boy. This led to Kaoru being ostracized also by his fellow orphans but he never cared. He and Naruto became best friends after Kaoru introduced himself to him one day during lunch when he saw Naruto eating by himself on the table in the corner, since that moment they had become inseparable. Heck he was on the verge of a panic attack when Naruto said that the Hokage himself had bought him an apartment and that he was leaving the orphanage. Thank god Naruto had suggested he also move in with him or else he might have just blacked out right there.

Laying down on his own mattress, he pulled the blanket over his body and slowly took out a photo from under his pillow. It was a picture of a gorgeous woman in her late 30's, she had pitch black hair that framed her heart shaped face and pale soft lips. But, what made her unique were the pair of red eyes she possessed, each having 3 tomoes in them.

"Tomorrows the day" Kaoru whispered "I'll make you proud…. I promise"

Quickly putting the picture back under his pillow he swiftly fell into a beautiful dreamless sleep.

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading, hope you guys enjoyed it :). I'm still an avid at this whole writing thing so please leave a review if you liked it ^_^

Till next time..


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